Team Composition

Though it is true that a skilled set of players can make any team composition work, when you're playing with strangers it is generally expected of everyone to fulfill a set of roles necessary to safely and efficiently complete a wave, and this often necessitates sticking to a strict meta of classes. This article will explain the roles needed to be fulfilled and which classes can satisfy them, as well as how each class can synergize with others.

Team roles

The role of collecting credits is, in 99% of cases, relegated to the Scout, who not only has increased collection range but also gains overheal from bundles. Theoretically, any class can perform the duties of collecting credits, but the effectiveness of each class is fluid and can vary depending on the map, the robots being spawned, and the composition of the team. The only class other than Scout who is capable of collecting credits without requiring support from their team is Spy, who can avoid dying thanks to his disguises and the Dead Ringer. However, Spy is a poor choice for collecting credits because he cannot reliably provide other sources of support the way Scout can with the Mad Milk, and because collecting credits would heavily distract from his duty of having to stab giant robots. Other than Scout and Spy, the most plausible choice for gathering bundles is Pyro-- but ONLY if it has sufficient resistances and/or a Medic to keep it from dying every five seconds.

In order to take care of uber Medics, it is recommended that they are attacked with a weapon that can instantly kill them from full health (150 HP). What's more, because uber Medics tend to spawn in groups of three or more, it's often necessary to use an attack that can instantly kill all of them at once. The three most popular solutions for this issue are the Sniper's Explosive Headshot, a Demoman's sticky trap, or the Pyro's Gas Passer. However, other classes are also capable of taking care of groups of uber Medics, albeit with less consistency. A Soldier's rocket with upgraded damage can theoretically kill a small group all at once (more consistently with crits), a Scout can individually pick off each Medic with one or two point-blank scattergun shots, and a Spy can stab all of the Medics without them turning around. Classes that don't have access to burst-damage weapons should avoid touching the Medics for fear of bringing their health to the triggering point for their ubercharge (50 HP). A Pyro's flamethrower, a Heavy's minigun, the Medic's shield and the Engineer's sentry gun can all quickly set off ubercharges, and those classes must take care to avoid the Medics until they are taken care of.

Giant Medics can reliably be taken care of by any class besides Pyro, Heavy and Medic. Spy is the most popular choice for quickly dispatching them, and the Engineer can use the Pomson 6000 to neutralize the giant Medic's ubercharge before it goes off.

Besides Medic, every class can substantially contribute to killing giant robots given they're properly equipped and upgraded. That said, the three classes that excel at killing giants are Spy, Heavy, and Demoman. A good Demoman with the Scottish Resistance and crits can render Spy obsolete, so it is usually not recommended to have both classes on the same team. Heavy, meanwhile, can fit into any team composition, and can easily mow down giants even if there's no Spy or Demoman to help him.

While the Heavy's single-target DPS is all well and good, if there are no other Heavies on the team, he can be overwhelmed by a large cluster of small robots all storming in at once. To this end, Soldier and Sniper come in the most useful, both classes being capable of wiping out large groups of robots, with Demoman and Pyro being runner-ups in whittling down hordes. The Medic's shield, while being underwhelming damage-wise, is capable of slowing down clusters of robots enough for them to be dealt with, even with classes not suited to area-of-effect damage.

Even with brutally efficent teams, it's possible that individual small robots can slip past the front lines, often with the bomb in tow. It would be a waste of time for the damage classes to constantly go back and forth between the frontline and wherever the bomb might be, but thankfully there's a handy little tool which can ensure that it's never necessary: the Engineer's sentry gun. The sentry gun struggles at dealing with large groups of robots, but can easily deal with smaller amounts trickling in. By keeping the sentry behind the frontline or on top of the bomb, it creates a solid anchor that eases the team's worry about any stragglers.

This is an easy one. A constant stream of ammo and a quick teleport to the front lines is crucial to keeping the situation stable, and the Engineer is the only class capable of providing either of those things. For this reason, he is a constant of any given team.

Pyro is usually considered the go-to answer for any tanks coming. However, other classes can deal with it too, to varying degrees. Here's a chart detailing their effectiveness:

Class	Rating	Review
Scout	A	The Soda Popper and the Shortstop both allow Scout to be an excellent contributor to tank damage, however they are expensive to upgrade and many Scouts will often choose not to invest into their primary.
Soldier	A	The Beggar's Bazooka and Air Strike can both do great and consistent damage to the tank, but often won't be the top dog unless crits are used. Still, because Soldiers often invest heavily into their primary, they are usually more than capable of dealing with tanks, sometimes even on their own.
Pyro	S	The Phlogistinator is relatively cheap to upgrade and is incredibly consistent, easy to use, and relatively fast at killing the tank, so long as the Pyro knows how to angle the flames properly so that they do the most damage (short version: point upwards). The Dragon's Fury allows for even more tank DPS, but requires crits to outdo the Phlog.
Demoman	B	Stickies can be somewhat inconsistent with regards to tank damage, but a Demoman who invests in his primary instead can be a very solid help in taking out the tank.
Heavy	C	Heavy's miniguns do 75% less damage to the tank compared to other targets. In most circumstances, he can ignore the tank, but having the Warrior's Spirit with upgraded swing speed allows for a substantial amount of tank damage.
Engineer	S+	The Engineer's Widowmaker costs a whopping 400 credits to fully upgrade its firing speed, and is the most consistent tankbuster in the game, especially with crit canteens. In a lot of circumstances, the Widowmaker can even out-damage a Pyro! What's more, Engineer doesn't need to abandon his regular duties in order to kill the tank, as the sentry gun can stay put in a safe spot and the dispenser just keeps doing its thing uninterrupted while the rest of the team holds the front line.
Medic	Bad	The shield is the highest possible source of damage from Medic, but its killing potential is limited to cleaning up small robots with low health pools. Against the tank, it's virtually useless.
Sniper	B	Sniper can do excellent amounts of tank damage with the Bushwacka and Cleaner's Carbine. However, investing into the Bushwacka can sometimes distract from other upgrades in need of investment, and Sniper cannot do his regular duties while he's busy with the tank.
Spy	Bad	No amount of swing speed upgrades on the knife or credits wasted on a revolver will make Spy remotely useful against the tank.

Class synergies

A cruicial aspect to understanding team composition is to understand how all the classes interact with each other. It's not exactly true that everyone can just play whatever they want and that they can expect good results, because certain classes depend on the support of their team and other classes can have their duties disrupted by their teammates.

Scout

Scout is practically a constant of any given team, and his roles of collecting credits, milking robots, and picking at giants and stragglers isn't dependent on the support of any other classes. His Mad Milk can support himself and practically everyone else on the team, however it's a tricky subject whether it's worth it to spend credits on upgrading its recharge rate; this is largely decided by if the team has a Medic, or if the rest of the team is capable of staying alive reliably. If the answer to both of those conditions is "no", then it's important to upgrade Mad Milk and thus hold back on fully upgrading his primary. Regardless, you can't really go wrong with Scout, however an important niche situation to note is that if there's a Spy on your team, the Scout must be careful not to spin around the robots and turn them around towards the Spy.

Soldier

Soldier's banners allow him to support his teammates with very helpful buffs, but he himself can struggle to stay on the front line if he cannot instantly kill small robots due to his limited budget for resistances. Thus, he has the best chances of surviving if he sticks near his team, who he benefits thanks to his banner. With sufficient upgrades, he can be slotted into any team, and doesn't particularly conflict with anyone's duties.

Pyro

A common pick and a somewhat problematic one as Pyro struggles even more than Soldier to stay alive on the front lines, especially since it needs to be close to the robots to do damage at all. Because of this, he depends more than any other class on having a source of healing, whether through the Scout's Mad Milk or the Medic. The Gas Passer can circumvent the need for a Medic killer if one chooses to use it, but many will ask you to avoid having it equipped.

Demoman

Because Demoman often cannot afford resistances, he often needs to use his teammates as meat shields and to avoid staying too close to the robots' spawn other than when he's setting sticky traps. He can handily take care of crowds, giants and uber Medics, but often leaves a lot of stragglers for his team to clean up. To this end, the Engineer's sentry gun can be most efficient at cleaning up the trash, but he'll also need the protection of other damage classes to avoid being overwhelmed. Demoman often works hand in hand with a Medic to have a steady supply of critical stickies. It's also worth noting that both Demo and Sniper can assume the role of Medic killing, and that reliably wiping out giants with critical stickies can render Spy obsolete.

Heavy

Heavy can work with just about anyone, particularly benefitting from the Scout's Mad Milk, the Engineer's dispenser, the Soldier's banners and the Medic's healing. Heavy can heal himself thanks to a healthy investment in both Health on Kill and resistances, but this can be too steep to afford on early waves and thus needs to stay near his teammates in order to stay alive for long periods of time. He can be overwhelmed by large groups of robots, but this can easily be solved with a class that can deal AoE damage, or-- get this-- another Heavy or two! Alternatively, a pocket Medic can often be enough to let a Heavy single-handedly clear house, assuming that the Medic is efficient with his shields and crit charges.

Engineer

Engineer's synergies are largely irrelevant because every single class, in one way or another, benefits from the dispenser and teleporter, and the sentry gun allows the team to confidently stay up in front. It can be viable to have two Engineers on one team, as two dispensers allow for faster healing and two sentry guns allow for more efficient whittling of small robots-- just watch out for the sentry busters!

Medic

Medic's healing powers can be helpful for any given class, but in order for him to be truly useful he needs a skilled teammate worth pocketing and giving crits to, such as a Heavy, Demoman or Soldier. There should never be more than one Medic on one team.

Sniper

Sniper is largely a lone wolf and can fit into any team composition, though stacking multiple Snipers can sometimes lead to frustration if there is no planned coordination between them-- that said, if there is, then a mission of Gear Grinder can theoretically be completed by five Snipers and one Engineer to supply them with ammo.

Spy

Spy is even more of a lone wolf than Sniper, and stacking multiple Spies is highly discouraged. Spy tends to have little to no synergy with the rest of his team, and requires a bit of space to have time to stab giants. Classes such as Pyro and Scout can get up close and cause robots to turn around towards the Spy, and can seriously mess him up as a result. Despite all of his downsides, he can be a great boon to a team that has a more passive line of defense, or doesn't have enough single-target DPS to deal with giants quickly.

Common team compositions

Now that we understand what roles are necessary to complete a mission, we can examine a couple of common setups and what their merits are.

The Two Cities Troupe

The philosophy of your average Two Cities team can be summed up in three points: every team needs a Medic, every team needs a Demoman, and you're not allowed to have more than one of the same class. None of these are true, but let's investigate anyway.

Medic has a lot of uses in Two Cities: the shield helps against incoming spam, crits can massively help out, and healing and reviving can clean up the team's whoopsies. For the average player, the last one is what is most accounted for. The average Two Cities player, especially a newer one, simply doesn't care about investing into resistances and Health on Kill, or taking any maneuvres that can help them avoid taking damage. Many such players see Medic as an obligatory crutch that they're simply fucked without, creating an uncomfortable dynamic which leads to people playing Medic not because they want to, but because they have to. No team needs a Medic to win. If you're going to play Medic, you should play him because you find shield charging and crit sharing fun, not because everyone else is bullying you to play him. If you're the type that would like to say "We need a Medic!", then your first instinct should be to switch to the class yourself. Don't want to play Medic? Then why should someone else do that job, if you think it's so boring?

The Scottish Resistance allows the Demoman to instantly kill any pile of uber Medics, and more crucially, if given crits via a crit canteen or a Medic, can potentially instantly kill any standard giant. This can come into play during any particular mission, but is most commonly seen on Empire Escalation, where the first three waves are more often than not dominated by a Demo and his Medic boyfriend. Both Mannhattan and Rottenburg allow for the front lines to be very close to the robots' spawn at all times, allowing Demo to place traps that can kill giants or groups of small robots as soon as they drop. There's no real downside to playing Demoman as long as one memorizes in what order robots spawn during a given wave, but a lot of newer players can't reasonably be expected to have that kind of perfect memory, but are still pressured to play Demo because he can kill uber Medics and is in the meta. While Demo can be a perfect choice in the hands of an experienced player, he isn't outright required in order to beat any mission reliably, with or without another Medic killer.

While both classes can handily help against crowds of robots, the actual reason why they're favored is because there's already a Heavy on the team, and you're not allowed to have more than one of the same class... according to low tours. Soldier's given preference because of his AoE damage and his banners, while Pyro is a popular choice because of the Gas Passer and because people like to WM1.

Ultimately, there's nothing strictly wrong about the default setup for Two Cities, but it's a somewhat strange insistence that can leave newer players unsure of what each class is supposed to do or what they're even picked for. There's ultimately nothing wrong with stacking any of the damage classes as long as there is some level of coordination happening, and even if there isn't, a quick bandaid to any problematic team is just to stack more Heavies. Speaking of which...

The Gear Grinder Gang

Scout and Engie take care of support and healing, Sniper takes care of Medics and clusters of robots, and Heavy has the best single-target DPS, making him the most sensible class to stack multiple of. Unlike the Two Cities meta, I actually don't find there to be anything wrong with this setup! Contrary to popular belief, Heavy is perfectly capable of keeping himself alive without a Medic, especially when there's two other Heavies to back him up. While this is regarded as the meta for Gear Grinder missions, the truth is that you can apply this setup to essentially any tour or mission and see good results. The only real asterisk is that many players will find it lame to just stack Heavies (despite the effectiveness of doing so) and will insist on offclassing, even if they're not great at the class they end up picking.